About Photo Competitions

As every person have a photographic voice. The great question is: what you really have to say?

Nowadays everyone is a photographer – with or without smartphones. 95 million photos and videos are posted to Instagram every day and over 6 billion per month to Facebook. And 80% of those will never be seen. Ever. 

A large percentage is poor quality photography. Constantine Manos said - 99% of the work on the Internet is bad photography. Of course the vast majority have no great things to say and pretensions or ambition to make also great photographs and they all almost shoot the same picture. Photography then becomes a game, an act of friendship, communication and love. That’s fine.

But if you take Photography in a more serious way you wil have several challenges when you start to share your work and you feel there is almost a fight for acceptance.

So when we start to publish have to choose between lots of Sites and Facebook pages because photographers have become a huge target to the photomarket. In social networks proliferate pages that easily praise mediocre photographs. Probably their administrators / curators do not know enough about Photography and are doing a bad job. Of course there are a few honest Sites with good know-how about photography - where we can share our work.

But we can see also lots of Sites asking you to submit your work and calling for entries -  you will know later that it will cost you money - and where you read promises that you will have international exposure and fantastic awards if you will be a winner of competitions. Competitions judged for unknown photocelebrities and run by people living of photography without knowing anything about Photography – where we can see a lot of cronyism. So their reviews are dangerous in many cases because it creates a false notion of what good photography is. So award winning photographers are common these days!

But are they really encouraging good works? Or, on the contrary, are creating the disappointment and desistance of many potential good photographers - encouraging only a restrictive and competitive social group?

But at same time we see more and more images obtained by anonymous amateurs are as or more interesting as those made by some recognized as Photography Masters. What then distinguishes the top photographers? Why does one reach the celebrity and distinction and others with equal or superior quality remain anonymous? What are they finally doing to Photography?

But the worst! Not only we have increasingly paids entries but also must pay to be published!!! Yes you can receive an e-mail saying: “Congratulations! Your image(s) have been selected for the BEST OF THE BEST PHOTOGRAPHERS. You'd be even more delighted to know that your work is among the Top 3% that made the cut! The publishing fee is between US$ 375 - 500 per page”! I think we must fight this. Even now there are some platforms that are just shameless means to extort money from unsuspecting photographers. With curators quoted without their knowledge they just charge money for every photo entered in fictitious contests – nothing more. They are part of just another mockery that circulates on the Net.

No thanks!

Does anyone know a photographer who isn't award winning these days? Its like being published or exhibited or awarded or liked or followed means virtually nothing anymore.

– Nick Turpin.

“Competitions are for horses, not artists” - Bela Bartok